Smile
by Sarsaparilla
Summary: It's not everyday that Sasuke learns something new, and this one really throws him for loop.


Oneshot. Don't own Naruto. End of story. Now here's the beginning:

**Smile**

It wasn't everyday that Sasuke leaned something new...

It had been a moment of insanity, Sasuke was sure. In the solitude of his bedroom, he had been turning things over in his mind. More specifically, he'd been mulling over his aloneness. Why was it that the solitude of his room was no different from the loneliness that surrounded him anywhere else? Even in crowds he was alone. These thoughts led him to an important question: was there anything wrong with being alone? Why was this such a big deal, early in the morning, long before he would arrive at the bridge and even longer before Kakashi would show up there?

With a small, barely-there frown, the Uchiha rolled onto his side, away from the window through which the sun would, _was_, sliding in. He didn't know the answer to that. He didn't know why this seemed so important - it never had before. At least, not in a number of years.

His parent's death was no longer fresh in his mind. In fact, years of trying to block the incident out completely had blurred its lines. The only thing that he still knew and felt very clearly, as clearly as he had in the seconds he'd heard his brother use the words "measuring stick" when referring to their parents, was his burning hate towards Itachi. It was a bile that ate constantly not only at his throat, but at his eyes when he closed them, and at his legs when he stopped running, and in his very soul when he stopped...

...something.

Regardless, he knew that he shouldn't be wanting anything more than "alone" because he was Uchiha Sasuke and it was a stretch to force himself to acknowledge terribly grating people like Sakura and Ino and Naruto.

_Naruto_.

Once, he'd accidentally learned of the boy's burden. After hearing such a weighty secret slip through the lips of a villager in a comment that was supposed to have been only for himself, all those times that Naruto had gotten all that of doubt and all of _those_ looks - it all made a little more sense. _It must be the doubt_, he decided, _that makes it so easy for that idiot to prove people wrong about him so often. _

All the time, it seemed, most especially during the Chunin exams, the blond turned contempt and doubt into something else completely. Something much more like respect and much less like disdain.

How?

Naruto pulled something even further puzzling from these everyday victories: friendship. With almost _everybody._ It was inexplicable, the way it would happen. Sasuke was a genius and yet he couldn't understand it. He was unorthodox, he was over-confident, he had to much energy, hell, he was _loud_ and that was enough right there. Despite this, maybe through it, no matter if it was he who won the fight, or if he was defeated, no matter if he was even _in_ the fight, he gained respect and friendship from his opponents and from those who watched him and were around him. What made this Uzumaki Naruto so special? Naruto, whose goal, everybody knew, was to become Hokage. Naruto, whose goal, very few people knew, was to be respected, acknowledged, and even admired. Naruto, who was so much closer to these goals than Sasuke was to his own.

It was very early in the morning when it had come upon him, this bout of insanity. Somehow, somewhere in the back of his mind, he found the answer. No matter how hard he tried to skirt around it, it came right back to stare him in the face. He rolled onto his other side. There was no helping it. He had to see for himself. He had to _know_.

Sasuke's movements were anything but rushed as he stood from his futon and brushed the wrinkles from his sleeping clothes. His face was still in the uncaring, seemingly emotionless way he usually had as he grasped the handle of the only mirror he owned. It had been his mother's.

Without the hesitancy that he never had, the Uchiha faced himself and pulled at his expression until his reflection stared back at him with the a grin so big that it could easily rival Naruto's. He examined it.

Nothing special. If anything, he looked strange. Was this really the answer to the growth that the hyper-active blond had gone through? Was it smiles that forced the people he met to respect him? To care about him? Could this be the key to that loser's success? If Sasuke were to go outside right now, with that smile (grimace?) on his face, would-

The look dropped from his face and was replaced with one of horror. Quickly, he brought the grin back to make sure he hadn't been mistaken.

No. It couldn't be.

With heavy conviction, he dropped the expression and closed his momentarily-hanging-open jaw. _Never_. Never again would he do something this ridiculous, this childish, this terribly _dangerous. _

If anybody were to ever find out, he would die. All the training in the world couldn't have prepared him for this. He didn't know if they had been there when he was younger, but they were there now, when he smiled that dreadful smile and angled his chin a certain way...

He, Uchiha Sasuke, avenger, genius...

He had dimples.


End file.
